Chief Strategy Officer, ward

Housing Forward is the backbone organization leading one of the nation's most innovative and successful homeless response systems. Through the All Neighbors Coalition, Housing Forward aligns more than 150 public, private, and nonprofit partners to build a coordinated, data-driven system that resolves homelessness across Dallas and Collin Counties. Since 2021, the community has achieved five consecutive years of reductions in homelessness while Housing Forward has grown into a high-performing lead agency driving system strategy, performance management, and cross-sector collaboration.

Governed by a 16-member board of directors and staffed by 45 full‑time team members, Housing Forward has an annual budget of approximately $45 million.

Housing Forward is entering its next chapter by implementing bold strategies to ensure no adult, young person, family, or veteran is forced to sleep outside. The organization seeks strategic leaders who thrive in complex environments, build alignment across diverse stakeholders, and embrace a culture of continuous learning, collaboration, and innovation to drive system improvement, at a pivotal moment in its trajectory.

Housing Forward is the federally designated lead agency for the 150+ member All Neighbors Coalition working collaboratively to solve homelessness in Dallas and Collin counties. The All Neighbors Coalition brings together service providers; cross-system partners including behavioral health, criminal justice, and workforce development; and local government, business, and funders to lead homelessness response in Dallas and Collin counties. Since 2021, All Neighbors has strategically expanded system capacity, resulting in the following outcomes:

• Supported 25,498 individuals to permanently exit homelessness, with 93% not returning to homelessness;
• Five consecutive years of homeless count reductions, with a 23% decrease in overall homelessness and a 25% decrease in street homelessness since 2021; and
• Developed a new operational model that brings together coordinated outreach, right‑sized exit pathways, and mental health & law enforcement partners to alleviate downtown homelessness that is planned to be scaled across Dallas County. This model permanently closed all downtown encampments and reduced daily street counts by 80+%.

Building upon this record of progress, Housing Forward is entering a pivotal next chapter in the evolution of the regional homeless response system. The organization seeks a strategic, collaborative, and highly effective Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) to help shape and lead that next chapter, strengthening an already high‑performing system while advancing the ambitious work still ahead. Housing Forward’s success has also brought significant growth and increasing complexity.

As the organization has expanded its role in aligning public and private resources and providing the strategic and administrative infrastructure for the homeless response system, its budget and responsibilities have grown rapidly. In response, Housing Forward is evolving its executive leadership structure to provide greater focus to two equally critical areas: the internal operational excellence necessary to support a growing organization and the external, system‑level strategy necessary to continue improving the region’s response to homelessness.

The newly created Chief Strategy Officer will provide leadership for the latter. Reporting to the President and CEO and serving as a member of the Executive Leadership Team, the CSO will work with the All Neighbors Coalition to shape the strategic direction of the regional homeless response system. The CSO will lead community wide planning and priority‑setting, align public and private investments,…